Broad Strokes: The National Museum of Women in the Arts' Blog

Lynda Benglis, Eridanus, 1984. Bronze, zinc, copper, aluminum, wire, 58 x 48 x 27 in.

Among NMWA’s new acquisitions this year is a sculpture by the innovative Lynda Benglis (American, b. 1940). Often billed as a feminist artist, I see Benglis as media oriented, as she works in anything from metal to encaustic to painting to video.

Benglis, a Louisiana native, trained under artists like Ida Kohlmeyer at H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College (now part of Tulane University). After receiving her bachelor’s in 1964, she moved to New York to study painting and became part of a close clique of artists including Gordon Hart, Barnett Newman, Carl Andre, Jennifer Bartlett, Ron Gorchov, and Marilyn Lenkowsky. It was during this time that she began her experimentation with poured floor paintings, which bridge the media of painting and sculpture.

In the early 1970’s she began a collaborative relationship with sculptor Robert Morris that would lead to her most infamous work – the Artforum advertisements. With the intent of pushing back against the male-dominated art world, she bought a series of self-promoting full-page ads in the magazine, ending with a photo featuring Benglis wearing only sunglasses and a large dildo. Male and female critics alike were very vocal, branding it “exploitative” or dismissing it as “kinky cheesecake.” Fascinatingly, Robert Morris’ ads in the same magazine of himself clad in S&M attire generated only a fraction of the commentary Benglis did, proving the entire point of her exercise: that women were simply not allowed the artistic acceptance that men had. She also produced a number of video works along the same subject lines at this time.

Benglis had been producing wire mesh relief sculptures covered in glittery paint since 1972, but by the early 1980s they had evolved to the elegant forms that Eridanus (titled after a river in Greek mythology) exemplifies so well. She used either plated steel or detailed wire infrastructures coated with layers of nickel, zinc, copper, and chrome to create sculptures that amazingly resemble knotted cloth. While I do appreciate her earlier work, I find her metallic “ruffles” far more appealing. Her evolution as an artist and willingness to experiment are apparent in their painstaking construction, which evokes anything from blooming flowers to fancy dresses. She also creates forms that simultaneously resemble human torsos and sheets of metal that appear to have been scrunched in someone’s fist before being tossed onto the wall. I can’t decide whether they feel effortless or monumentally heavy. Benglis continues to work today, dividing her time between New York and New Mexico.

Come decide for yourself on our third floor galleries, where you can see Eridanus and other wonderful recent NMWA acquisitions!

About the author: Carolanne Bonanno is NMWA’s communications and publications intern.

Melissa Miller, Broken Wing, 1986. Oil on linen. 58 x 66 1/2 inches (147.3 x 169 cm). National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Laura Lee and Jack S. Blanton and The Lois Pollard Price Acquisition Fund

For this pre-Halloween week’s artist we’re taking a look at the painter of one of the staff’s favorite pieces from Telling Secrets – the visceral and rather scary Broken Wing by Melissa Miller.

An initial glance at Broken Wing elicits definitions of struggle, fear, and urgency. The ruffled feathers and twisted posture of the swan contain a subtext of disrupted elegance or beauty. Upon a further glance we see the demons and skeletons writhing in the background – egging on the ghoul breaking the wing? chasing the swan? fleeing? -  and the message of death becomes plain. Even more mysterious are the gigantic swooping owl in the far background, the lion-like face in the foreground, and the spectral hands emerging from the ground to reach for the swan – what are their roles? Symbolism aside, their contribution to the dark mood of the painting is spine-chillingly brilliant once you notice them.

Miller was born in Houston, Texas and has lived in Austin for most of her life. She began to teach herself how to paint after attending Yale’s Summer School of Music and Art after graduating from the University of New Mexico in 1974. She spends much time alone, drawing imagery from her surroundings and her own imagination and emotions.

Miller’s paintings are clearly very internalized in subject matter. They speak in metaphor with animals acting as symbols for greater narratives and emotions. She reaches into the realm of magical realism and mythology to express the progression of her own life and the increasing complexity of life as it moves forward. Her work, as a reflection of herself as an individual, reflects on the complexities and mysteries of the human existence: “My painting roots are in the abstract expressionist movement and many of the same concerns have remained important to me over the years…I believe in the power of paint, not only to create a convincing illusion, but to prompt a visceral emotional response in the viewer.”

Come see Broken Wing in all its bone-chilling glory at Telling Secrets and pick up a scavenger hunt – we’ll be picking our October winners today. Happy Halloween!

About the Author: Carolanne Bonanno is NMWA’s communications and publishing intern.

Stepping Outside of Her Life, 1996. Lithograph on paper, 17 x 23 in. Gift of the artist.

“The thing is, by dealing in content, it doesn’t restrict you to any style. It frees you.” – 1994 interview

Sigler in 1983.

The work of Hollis Sigler is to me, first and foremost, vibrant. Her paintings overflow with life, and each work feels intimate and personal as a diary page. But in their Technicolor exuberance there is a bitter-sweetness. Sigler emphasized content over style; at the dawn of her career in the 1970s, she abandoned the academic training from her Art Institute of Chicago MFA in favor of a faux naïf style. Her transition from realism was not a simple change of pace – it was a means to her end of rebellion against the exclusion of women from mainstream recognition in the arts. Art was not, as she said, “just for art’s sake;” there was a purpose to it, and later in her career its purpose for her became even more personal.

Sigler was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1985, and during a recurrence of the disease in 1992 it became the focus of her work. She announced publicly that she had cancer during a time when it still carried a stigma: “Up to that point, I had always been very careful to keep the “cause” out of my work. I decided that I now had to incorporate the cause, because as an artist I have an obligation to say something, to be responsible to my community.”

Taking Stock of Her Situation, 1996. Lithograph on paper, 18 x 23 3/4 in. Gift of the artist.

One of the most distinguishing marks of Sigler’s work is the writing which surrounds and penetrates the compositions. Sometimes the text is personal and reflective, and other times it is historical and statistical. But why was it there at all? “We are a society that is geared towards words…My objective is to inform. And I think it counterpoints the visual, because the visual always has to do with emotions. It is a way of putting the cause in the work, and making it very specific, which makes people notice it.”

The spirit of her work is communicative, generous, and open. She wanted people to be able to take away meaning from her paintings, whether it was feminism or the reality of dealing with cancer. Her candid, sincere style makes this passing of knowledge all the more enjoyable and understandable for her viewers.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. To learn more, you can visit NBCAM, the Susan G. Komen Foundation, or the American Cancer Society.

About the Author: Carolanne Bonanno is NMWA’s communications and publishing intern.

Last week, the Obamas released the list of artwork they will be borrowing from Washington museums and galleries for the White House, just two blocks from NMWA. The collection, dominated by modern and contemporary works, was selected by Michelle Obama, the White House curator and decorator, and local curators. Although the list of 45 pieces includes only six works by women, we were happy to hear that two of the six are paintings by Alma Thomas, a local abstract painter. The First Lady chose Watusi (Hard Edge), 1963, for the East Wing. Sky Light, 1973, which reflects Thomas’ signature rows of dense, irregular shapes, is also on the list.

Orion, 1973, National Museum of Women in the Arts

NMWA is proud to have two works by Alma Thomas. The mesmerizing paintings—created when the artists was nearly eighty years old—have been visitor and staff favorites.

Alma Woodsey Thomas was born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1891, but moved with her family in her teens to Washington, DC, for the city’s educational opportunities for African Americans. Driven by her passion for both teaching and learning, Thomas received a teaching certificate and taught for several years before enrolling at Howard University. Although she planned to study costume design (she loved putting together marionette plays with her students), she was fascinated by abstract painting and encouraged to study art by the Howard Art Department Chair James Herring. In 1924 she became Howard’s first fine arts graduate and the first African American woman to hold a fine arts degree—a testament to her talent and confidence, considering she grew up at a time when blacks had limited access to colleges and museums.

For the next 35 years, after receiving a masters in arts education at Teachers College, Columbia University, Thomas taught at Shaw Junior High School, where she also organized the School Arts League Project and established the public school system’s first art gallery. She relished in cultivating the creativity of her students.

Alma Thomas in her studio, c. 1968, Photo by Ida Jervis, Courtesy Archives of American Art

During her distinguished teaching career, Thomas painted on the side and was active in the growing arts community. She was involved with the Little Paris Studio artists’ group (formed by Lois Mailou Jones and Celine Tabary) and helped found the Barnett Aden Gallery, the first privately owned gallery in segregated Washington to cross racial lines. Through the gallery, she familiarized herself with modern artistic trends and prominent artists, curators, and critics. Thomas turned more heavily towards abstraction in 1950 when she began taking night and weekend classes (for the next ten years) at American University with Jacob Kainen, Robert Gates and Joe Summerford. Through her close relationships with Gene Davis and Morris Louis (part of the Washington Color School), she changed her style from realism to cubism to abstract impressionism, slowly mastering the expressive potential of color.

Thomas retired from teaching in 1960 to focus on her art. During the 1960s and 70s, as her work began receiving more recognition, she incorporated a more intense color palette and experimented with optical effects, painting flowers and trees as seen from space. She was inspired by nature, particularly the interplay of light and shadow as the wind blew through the holly tree outside her living room window. “Light reveals to us the spirit and living soul of the world through colors,” she said.

Detail of Iris, Tulips, Jonquils, and Crocuses, 1969, National Museum of Women in the Arts

It wasn’t until after a major solo show at Howard University Gallery of Art in 1966 that Thomas developed her signature style of rectangular brushstrokes arranged like a mosaic (she called them “Alma’s Stripes”). Art critic Peter Schjeldahl of the New York Times said of her 1972 exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (Thomas was the first African American woman to have a solo show there), “She is a gifted, ebullient abstractionist…[whose] best pictures are loose, gridlike arrangements of more or less uniform vertical brushstrokes, sumptuous and strongly rhythmic in color and full of light.” Despite growing health problems, Thomas continued to paint until she died in 1978. Her row house on 15th Street, NW, where she lived for more than seven decades, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Come enjoy two amazing works by Thomas at NMWA today!

Vivian Djen is the managing editor at the National Museum of Women in the Arts